


starchild

by pricklyteeth



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: 'cursed' jongin, Alternate Universe - Historical, Blood Magic, Cinderella Elements, Enemies to Lovers, Falling In Love, Familial Abuse, Historical AU, M/M, Prince Yixing, bratty taohun, but also fluffy first love, dark themes, fantastic historicism, from various cinderella spinoffs, inspired by various storylines, magic and witchcraft and stars, set in feudal china, to kubo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-04-27 04:39:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14417859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pricklyteeth/pseuds/pricklyteeth
Summary: Abused by his stepfather and two stepbrothers, all Jongin wants is a chance to go to the ball and meet the prince, maybe talk to him about the condition of the poor in his kingdom and offer to work at the palace.All very straight forward.But upon meeting his Royal Highness Zhang Yixing, things go very differently.





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

Long, long ago, China was made up of three kingdoms.

The _Shen_ kingdom in the north, renowned for its skilled warriors, branched up and out from the foothills of the _Qinling_ mountains. Their warriors, said to be gifted with divine energy, were rumoured to be descendants from a celestial people who once bled stardust.

The _Hualong_ kingdom, known for its musicianship and artistry, carved from the border of the _Shen_ kingdom, swept down along the coast through the southernmost provinces. The _Hualong_ —or flower dragon—people were dedicated to their craft. Whether it was epic song, dyeing textiles, woodworking, or pottery, the _Hualong_ , like the flower dragon they were named after, were as prodigious with their labor as the blossoms that covered their land as far as the eye could see.

Nestled between the kingdoms of _Hualong_ and _Shen_ was the kingdom of _Zhang_ , the commercial trade center between the kingdoms. Because of its location on either side of the Yellow River, communication and trade between the kingdoms flourished here. This kingdom, known for its skilled merchants, philosophers and scholars, also boasted technological innovations, discoveries in medicinal practice, and advances in scientific and mathematical theory that went on to be disseminated to the other kingdoms.

Here is where our story takes place. But it has little to do with scholars and technology, and more to do with magic, mischief and adventure.

 

—

 

Bells sound. “Jongin!”

At the call, Jongin straightens from where he’s bent over the food scraps, plucking Chanyeol out of the slop. He wipes the poor clumsy pup off as best he can with a rag as he’s answering. “I’m coming, just one moment—”

Before he can finish though, there’s another voice.

“ _Ey! Kāi chuānghu_! Open the windows!” That was Zitao.

“ _Kāi huǒ!_ Start the fire, Jongin, it’s absolutely freezing!” Sehun hollers.

“ _Kāi shuǐ_ —turn on the water for my bath.” His stepfather doesn’t raise his voice, knowing his voice carried down through the pipes and out into the back courtyard,where Jongin is now.

He lets out a sigh at all the commands, throwing the rag over his shoulder and setting Chanyeol down. He doesn’t know if he’s a human or a dog named Kai with the way they call him to do things. They say it more than they say his name. _Kāi_ this _kāi_ that. Open the doors, light the candles, open the closet, start the bath, _kāi kāi kāi._

From the ground, Chanyeol looks at him thoughtfully, as if there’s something he wants to say.

“I’m sorry,” Jongin says, gathering the empty feeding pails. “You’re absolutely right, dogs don’t deserve to be treated with any less respect either.”

Chanyeol’s tail starts a slow wag, and Jongin wipes off a goopy patch of what looks like leftover stew from his friend’s chin before hurrying back into the estate with a quick farewell.

 

Jongin finds his stepbrothers and stepfather in the drawing room when he comes in, after rushing to feed the fire and boil a couple stone cauldrons-worth of water so that stepfather may have his bath at his preferred temperature (and so that inevitably, when his stepbrothers wish to bathe as well, there’s already hot water prepared).

At his arrival, he is greeted with unimpressed expressions, his stepfather raising an imperious brow at the state of his clothes.

Sehun scoffs from around his _pípá_ , his tortoiseshell nail picks clicking against the wooden body of the lute. “I see Jongin has been rolling around in dirt and soot again,” he comments, eyes lingering disdainfully on Jongin’s cheek.

Zitao makes a disgusted sound, dropping his _yángqín_ mallets, sheepskin heads first onto his instrument to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Why don’t you sleep with the pigs and the cows since you wish to smell like them?”

Jongin bites his tongue as he makes his way over to the windows to open them and let the afternoon light in, as Tao had wanted. “That might actually be a good idea,” Jongin says airily, letting out a breath as the afternoon breeze carries the smell of jasmine and citrus blossoms into the room. “It would be a nice way to keep warm.”

Jongin keeps to himself that they would make much better company than either of his stepbrothers, even on a good day.

Tao and Sehun break out into guffaws at this though, nearly falling over themselves.

“What an absolute dolt!” Zitao snickers.

Sehun nearly drops his instrument, chest heaving with his laughter. “You are absolutely _simple_ , Jongin. Truly, a country bumpkin!”

At that, Tao and Sehun begin another bout of raucous laughter.

With an amused smirk, stepfather raises a hand to stop them. “Now now, that is no way for two gentlemen to treat their brother. Jongin, I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive your siblings. But they are quite right, you’re absolutely filthy. I do hope you don’t plan to draw my bath or cook dinner in this state…?”

Jongin’s lips tighten, nodding curtly. “I will wash up prior, stepfather.”

The man’s brow relaxes, and Jongin allows himself a breath. “Rightly so. Do carry on, we have an important lesson to get back to.”

“Yes stepfather,” he says, meek as he can, bowing out and moving to close the double doors behind him, resting his forehead against the slats of wood. He stays there for a moment, waiting to see if stepfather changes his mind, but he doesn’t.

Through the doors, he can hear stepfather beginning a few scales with his _gǔ zhēng_ , practiced fingers dressed with tortoiseshell picks easily finding the notes in a scale. His stepbrothers clumsily follow along, hitting wrong notes before guessing at the right ones.

With that, Jongin heads back out to scrub himself down at the well before he can go to prepare stepfather’s bath.

Sicheng and Guanlin—Jongin’s friends (extended family, really) who live on the estate to work as fieldhands—are off at the moment selling the week’s harvest, so Jongin doesn’t have to worry about one of them sneaking up behind him. Qian and Chengxiao are inside, probably starting to fix dinner already, but they would never do anything. They dote on him just like his mother used to, especially Qian.

All of Jongin’s nonhuman friends seem to be away, too. Chanyeol must have had something to attend to; Jongin was going to try to give him a wash when he came back.

Next time then, Jongin thinks to himself, tugging his loose hemp shirt over his head, wincing a little when the scratchy material catches on the scabbing across his back from the last time Stepfather was cross with him.

His trousers come off next, and he sets them in a pail by his clean change of clothes to wash and leave out to dry after he’s washed up.

Jongin debates taking down his hair, since he usually reserves washing his hair for when Qian can help him tie it back up. Not that Jongin can’t tie his own knot, but it’s been a ritual between them since his mother had passed on.

He’ll ask her once he gets inside, he decides. Unraveling the braid with his fingers, Jongin moves to the lever on the other side of the well to pump groundwater up into the well. He smiles to himself at the telltale sound of water sloshing up against the sides, pumping up a little more than he knows he’ll need so he can bring the extra water back to the kitchens. His mother used to say it was the sound of the well speaking.

What Jongin doesn’t know is that all the extra pumping gives the man in royal garb ducked _just_ behind the well ample time to snag his clean garments without being noticed.

Jongin also fails to notice as he proceeds to slowly upend a pail of water over his head that the man who made off with his clean garments sneaks off toward the stables as he’s busy scrubbing himself clean.

It’s only once he’s finished that he realizes that his clothes are missing. After a few panicked moments, checking underneath the pail of his dirty garments, even peeking _into_ the well, Jongin looks up and around, scanning the grounds.

The well is tucked into a corner, underneath an awning extending out from the house and shaded on the other side by a Cypress tree. It’s generally a good vantage point to see out, Jongin thinks to himself, panic rising in his chest as he covers himself with his hands.

“Who goes there?” Jongin asks, trying to sound assertive. “Baekhyun, this better not be you! If so, I’m not bringing you rice cakes for two moons!”

That pup is always up to _something_. However, his threats go unanswered, and Baekhyun is usually quick to cave when it comes to rice cakes.

Behind the stable wall, the actual perpetrator in possession of Jongin’s clean clothes bites his lip, trying not to laugh at the false accusation.

At the silence, Jongin shifts uneasily, wringing out his dirty clothes in an attempt to salvage them. “This isn’t funny,” he says, feeling vulnerable.

Nothing happens though, and the sun is sitting lower and lower in the sky as the time passes, so Jongin makes a break for the kitchens in hopes that Chengxiao and Qian would help him.

 

 

Following the clothing fiasco, he has his hair redressed by simultaneously pacifying and amused Qian, moving on to carrying the boiled water to the funneling system that fed into the baths, doubly checking that it was the right temperature. It is then that Jongin re-enters the drawing room.

He’s greeted with Sehun looking entirely put out and Zitao lain over his _yángqín_ , letting out a whine of distress. “It doesn’t matter what instrument we get father, none of them _work_ right. We’re not _meant_ to be musicians!”

Stepfather lets out a quiet sigh. “Taozi, we don’t feel sorry for ourselves,” he says, eyes cutting over to Jongin. “It could always be worse.” Without missing a beat, his mouth lifts into a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I take it our baths are ready?”

Jongin nods, keeping his eyes on the ground.

 

 

That night, after dinner, in the spirit of celebrating his good mood, stepfather asks Jongin to do some shadow play.

At this, Jongin’s eyes light up, excited to share something he’s usually made to practice in secret.

Stepfather’s smile tightens. “Without using your curse.”

The energy swirling in the palms of Jongin’s hands abruptly stops and he bows a little, feeling foolish for thinking he was being allowed to practice. “I’ll go fetch my puppet things—was there a story that you would like me to perform in particular, Stepfather?”

The man doesn’t look up from examining his fingernails, as Qian works on trimming and buffing the nails from his other hand. “Perhaps the story of The Ninth Immortal? Or that egregious tale of that blood demon. The one that believes he has a home with his host,” he says, not without some malice, looking up at Jongin then. “Both, perhaps.”

Jongin bows his assent, quickly exiting the room and swallowing back the bile that threatens to rise in his throat as he crosses the interior courtyard. This _is_ his home, he wanted to scream. Stepfather had only inherited this estate when his mother had passed. This home was his family’s, had been _built_ by his ancestors.

He takes off his slippers upon entering the kitchen compound, climbing the ventilation grate to get into the quarters he shares with Guanlin and Sicheng. There’s just enough loft space for the three of them, and they felt more comfortable giving Qian and Chengxiao the proper room.

After getting onto the ledge, he takes a breath to gather himself before gently prying a side of boarding from the furthest most rafter to retrieve his basket of shadow play paraphernalia.

The case is a woven basket made up of bamboo, with ornate silver fastenings and buckles, straps for carrying it on the back, and a lock engraved with his mother’s seal. The case and the items it contains are some of the few remaining gifts he has from her and he does his best to cherish them.

Setting his hand on the seal and quickly unlocking it with his own magic, Jongin pulls out a candle, a sheer piece of cloth, a folded down bamboo frame, and the necessary paper figures before clicking the case shut and returning it to the inside of the rafter.

With everything in hand, he climbs back down carefully before hurrying back across the outer courtyard, through the back archway, across the inner courtyard and into the main hall.  

Qian and Chengxiao, who had been attending to his stepfather and stepbrothers before, seem to have been dismissed when he arrives. His heart sinks a little; he was excited to show them some shadowplay too—they’re all usually too exhausted when they do have some time to themselves.

He bows his head in greeting before beginning to set up, unfolding the frame and draping the cloth over it. He secures the cloth in place with steel clips before lighting the candle, moving to blow the other candles in the hall out before situating himself behind the stage, just below the light of the flame.

His stepfather and stepbrothers are mostly silent—Jongin can hear Sehun and Tao muttering quietly amongst themselves, but he feels some pride in what feels something like reverence at his craft.

“Stepfather, may I begin?” Jongin asks, once he’s sure none of the paper puppet strings are tangled.

“Yes, child, we’ve been waiting,” Stepfather replies after a sip of his rice wine.

Jongin allows a flock of paper geese to skitter across the screen. “This is the story of The Ninth Immortal,” he begins, paper mountains rising up after the geese. “Of a lost child, who didn’t know his beginnings.”

Jongin gets lost in his own telling, as he often does, finding such joy and catharsis in this expression, even when he has to manipulate the paper manually, rather than use his magic, which is most natural for him.

He tells the story of this child, who grows up not entirely alone, but with the help of a protector, he finds his way, traveling to _Pénglái xiāndǎo_ , the mythical floating mountain where the Eight Immortals live.

There, one of the immortals falls for him, realizing that he too is an immortal. It’s at this point that his stepfather begins to tut, and Sehun and Tao begin to snicker.

“As if someone could ever,” Sehun whispers.

“Truly, it must be a wild fantasy for someone born in the mortal realm to cross into _Pénglái xiāndǎo_ in the very first place, and not only that, for an immortal to fall in love with him, _and_ for that person to also be immortal? Give me a _break_ ,” Tao scoffs.

“Yes, right, that’s quite enough.” Stepfather says. “It was a good exercise in comedy and ludicrousy. _Làzhú diǎn yīxià, ba_ —light the candles again, won’t you?”

Jongin lets the ornate background he’d built up of Penglai, the mountain peaks, the misty cloud cover, the temples drop off the screen. He should have known better than to have thought they would even try to respect the story. “Yes, Stepfather,” he hears himself saying, setting everything down and turning to pick up the candle.

He lights Stepfather’s, then Zitao’s, then Sehun’s candles first, before lighting a couple of the primary candles around the hall.

It’s when he’s moving to light the other candles that Stepfather asks. “Jongin, have you noticed that things have been going missing around the estate?”

Jongin freezes, thinking back to earlier that day, when his clothing had mysteriously gone missing. He looks over though, and wonders if it had perhaps been one of his stepsiblings. “I may have, why do you ask, Stepfather?”

For some reason, it sounds like a test, but he’s not sure what Stepfather’s looking for. Jongin has realized over time, though, that he was never meant to pass these tests in the first place. That often whatever he responded, whether he even responded, none of his answers would be right.

Stepfather drinks the last of his rice wine, holding it out for Jongin to take. “I have my suspicions. I think it is that girl. The Chungxi girl.”

Jongin nearly drops the cup. Not Chengxiao. “It-it really couldn’t be, she wouldn’t, her family has been loyal to this house for so long—”

Stepfather’s carefully casual expression steels. “You question my authority?”

Jongin tries not to shake, his breaths going shallow. The last time Stepfather had started accusing people like this, they had to expel Chengxiao’s parents, and the rest of the older estate hands. “N-no, Stepfather.”

“Very well. I want you to expel her from the estate, since you live within the same compound. It’s late and I am ready to retire to bed.”

“Is-is that entirely necessary, the items might have just been misplaced-”

Stepfather stands, the candlelight casting his already stern features in even harsher angles.“Is _this_ really such an extraordinary request?”

Jongin swallows. The threat in Stepfather’s voice is clear. “No, Stepfather, n-not at all.”

“I want her gone by morning, is that clear?”

Jongin’s eyes settle on the candle in his hands. “Understood.”

 

 

Before Jongin can get back to the kitchen compound, Sicheng and Guanlin intercept him in the outer courtyard, coming back from the stables. They look distressed. Guanlin looks around furtively before grabbing ahold of him. “Jongin, one of the horses. One of the horses, Jongin,” he says.

Jongin tries to get out to Guanlin’s grip to look at the stables. “What about one of the horses? Is someone sick?”

Sicheng looks like he’s about to pass out.

“It’s Ato," Sicheng says, voice a panicked whisper. "He’s _missing_.”

Jongin momentarily stops breathing. Ato is Stepfather’s prized stallion. He would certainly have all of them beheaded. Shit, shit, _shit_. “Are—are you certain?”

Guanlin’s grip tightens on Jongin’s shoulder, eyes insistent and full of fear. “ _Gone_ , Jongin.”

Sicheng lifts a hemp satchel, looking blue in the moonlight. His brows knit in confusion even as he informs Jongin about its contents. “But whoever did it left some serious change.”

Jongin lets out a breath, more perplexed than ever. Was this the same person that has been taking random items from the estate? Was it the reason his clean clothes were stolen?

Regardless, the coins aren’t going to replace Ato. Jongin’s afraid that at the very least, Stepfather’s going to have him fire one of them on his behalf when—if anyone—it was Jongin’s fault; Ato was there during feeding. Jongin was in charge of the field today while Guanlin and Sicheng were at the market. But, knowing his Stepfather, the punishment would be much more severe.

“What should we do?” Sicheng asks, setting the bag in Jongin’s hand. It was even heavier than it looked.

“We should give at least half of it to Chengxiao,” Jongin says solemnly.

Guanlin balks a little at that. “ _Ge_ , with all due respect, even if we wanted to split this and just run, it wouldn’t make sense to just give Xiao half—”

“I have to expel her from the grounds _tonight_ , Guanlin.”

“Wait, what?”

“Stepfather’s blaming her for all the random things that keep disappearing.”

Sicheng squints. “Where would Xiao even hide a horse, we don’t even have room to put our feet in there.”

Jongin lets out a low whistle. “Well, he doesn’t know about that one yet, but he was going to dump me bloody in the river again if I didn’t have her gone by morning, so we’ve just gotta get Xiao out and housed with someone from the village we trust for now, and hope by some miracle Ato comes back home before the sun rises.”

Guanlin lets out a low whistle of his own. “Well shit.”

Jongin nods. “Yeah.”

 

 

—

 

 

“That insolent child!”

Junmyeon, the advisor bearing the news bows once again before taking his place on his knees before the emperor. “Emperor Zhang, as your closest advisor, may I suggest—”

The emperor tuts, laying his cheek in the palm of his hand, a casual posture on the seat of his throne now that the royal guard have left the meeting room. “Junmyeon, it is not _we_ who need the counseling.”

The empress sighs beside him. “Quite right, it’s our Yixing.”

“The boy is simply not prepared for the throne,” says the emperor, whose fine lines often give him a befitting stately appearance, now betray his old age.

Junmyeon’s mouth lifts into a small smirk for a moment before schooling his expression into a solemn one. How vulnerable the royal family was behind closed doors could be outright laughable if it weren’t so deeply embittering. The fact that Junmyeon’s family was made to serve theirs generation after generation, when the royal family was so utterly reliant on the loyalty of the families serving them made his stomach twist.

The power they wielded, without knowing its capacity—without knowing order—disturbed him.

That he was seen as a simple eunuch and this bumbling emperor was seen as a mighty, illustrious and all powerful vessel of the divine—the fates were certainly cruel and unusual wenches.

Lifting his eyes to the emperor’s chin, he nods his assent. But like anything else, he thinks to himself, the fates could certainly be swayed. “Perhaps, if I were given some time to follow our young prince the next time he goes on one of his escapades—”  

The emperor sits up, mulling this over. “Perhaps. I should like to see his personal guard first. That Yifan. As well as request an audience with our prince, whenever he decides to return to his duties here.”

Junmyeon’s lips purse. “Yes, as you wish, your Highness.”

The empress sighs. “Really, darling, it’s those stories our Yixing’s grown up with. The folktales that filled his head with silly romantic notions of finding a suitable marriage partner. He won’t listen to _reason_.”

“Yes, I do think you’re quite right, my love. He doesn’t realize the importance of marriage, of his duty to secure a connection to the other kingdoms, to further the Zhang lineage. Blood is binding, isn’t it?”

The emperor looks to his advisor then, on his knees before them, and Junmyeon’s gut twists as he puts on a saccharine smile. How cruel it was, Junmyeon thinks bitterly to himself. To invoke the very liquid in his veins, his life sustenance, as the reason for his position of servitude.

That no amount of bloodletting would change the nature of his blood. He resented that the emperor was absolutely right, and that he was meant to be happy about it. He bows anyway. “You are certainly correct, your Royal Highness.”

The empress sits back with another sigh, forever distraught over her only son. “I just want to hear the pitter pattering of little feet around the palace, is that really so much to ask?”

The emperor sets his hand on hers in a comforting gesture. “Perhaps the ball coming up will wake our Yixing up, hm? Once he is made to engage with our people, he will see his responsibility and duty to the kingdom.”

“You might just be right, my dear,” she nods.

“He’s a boy,” the emperor reasons. “A stubborn and headstrong boy at that. It might just be that order and duty from within the palace is stifling—he does not realize the extent of his actions in the kingdom beyond.”

“Yes, I do remember when another young man I once knew was just the same way,” the empress titters, fan dropping to hide her smile.

The emperor splutters, near blushing at the remark. Junmyeon is serving a family of absolute imbeciles.

His royal highness coughs as a means to regain his composure, his expression returning to a commanding one. “Right. In any case, Yixing must settle down, and I do believe that proper engagement with our kingdom’s public will remind him of his duties to the throne.”

“Advisor Junmyeon,” he continues, as Junmyeon quickly moves to unravel some parchment paper from his robes. “Make sure to order a declaration to our Kingdom’s general public, by order of Emperor Zhang; that we are to have a ball on the first night of the next full moon, and that everyone is invited to the palace to celebrate Prince Zhang’s proclamation of his duty to the kingdom.”

Junmyeon doesn’t ask how the emperor thinks he’s going to get a proclamation like that from a brat like Yixing, but he says nothing, finishing the last character before looking up. “Very well, your Highness. Is there anything else you wish for me to do?”

“Yes, would you get a servant to bring some more _xiānhuā bǐng_? We’ve run out of flower cake.”

Junmyeon’s jaw tightens. “Certainly, your Majesty.”

 

 

—

 

 

Jongin closes his eyes. This is so humiliating. His stepfather had just doused him in a bucket of cold water and then ordered him to go to market soaking wet.

Ato had miraculously turned back up in the stable again, and he seemed absolutely fine, but he was a little matted and had clearly gotten some riding in the day before.

Jongin and Sicheng had been able to groom him and give him a dust bath before Stepfather had come out for his morning ride around the grounds, but he didn’t like how tired Ato seemed, and attributed it to one of the stable boys going for a joy ride with Ato during the night.

And, because he couldn’t tell who had done it, he decided to upend the cold water and cow fat solution they were going to use scrub down the stables on Jongin to show his disapproval.

When Jongin had asked if he could have changed into something else, stepfather had just looked at him beseechingly, gesturing to his step brothers, Zitao and Sehun. ‘What will your brothers eat for breakfast?’ he had asked. ‘Surely you are not so cruel to let them starve?’

His ears had burned hot at that. Jongin had to wake at dawn every morning to prepare breakfast for his stepfather and his sons, and this morning was no different.

He had prepared steamed eggs, steamed buns, fish, pickled vegetables and tea, bringing it into their sleeping quarters, eager to go out into the field to find his friends to share breakfast with them.

Only this morning, stepfather had decided to toss everything Jongin had cooked on a whim and then, after noting Ato's condition, ordered him to go out covered in cold stablewater.

Passersby stared at him as he trudged along the dirt path to the fishmarket, the ragged hole-worn cloth slippers he wore getting muddied as he walked, still dripping. He had tried to wipe his mouth, but it was no use, his hands and sleeves were also covered in the sudsy water, and it tasted foul.

Nearly at the market, Jongin sees a homeless man, looking blankly ahead as people passed by, ignoring him.  

It’s too common around the Kingdom, too many people out on the street. Others, suffering as servants or serfs. Jongin bitterly thinks of his own situation, one that does not even have visibility in a title or name.

His mother was wed to his stepfather when Jongin was quite young. His father had left them his estate in his passing, and his mother had unhappily taken to managing it. She must have been lonely, Jongin had thought.

He’s unsure of how they had met, but he remembers his stepfather coming in for tea one day, and then another, then another, and then one day he never left, bringing his children with him.

He remembers not liking them, even as a child, but he vowed to love them as his own family, if it would make his mother proud. He doesn’t remember if she was happy then, but he hopes, for the short time that she was there for it, that she was. If she was happy, then all of the pain and humiliation that Jongin suffered, well, it’d be worth it.

Looking over his shoulder as he crosses the relatively busy path to the vendors just outside the market, he calls out, waving an arm. “Mama Lu!”

He may be dripping wet on a biting autumn morning, but the scowl on Luhan’s face makes it all worth it. “Stop calling me that, I’m not my ma.”

Jongin grins. “You might as well be, you’re running her stand, aren’t you?”

Luhan clucks at him, but stops midway, as if just noticing the state of Jongin’s appearance just now. “Gods and goddesses, you’re soaking wet. Is it-”

Jongin nods, grimacing.

“Yeah, it was him. Now hurry with the shrimp dumplings, I have to bring them back fast before he thinks of some other way to ruin my life.”

Luhan nods, already filling the bamboo containers Jongin brought with him with an assortment of steamed and fried dumplings.

“Speaking of the lizard king, though,” Jongin adds, remembering. “He had me kick Chengxiao out of the estate. Is it, would it be possible for her to stay with you and Ma? She’s staying with the Wen’s, but her parents are already helping them with their weaving. She’s a really hard worker and—”

Luhan stops in his lightning fast distribution of dumplings, a goofy, reassuring smile on his face. “Xiao can help us out. I’m sure with the both of us working this cart, we’ll be out of dumplings by noon.”

Jongin nods his thanks, blinking back the sudden wetness that forms in his eyes. “Thanks, Lu. It means a lot.”

“It’s not a problem, you’re giving us a helping hand—are you crying? Shit, Jongin,” Luhan says, handing him the bamboo containers, now full of dumplings.

“I certainly am not!” Jongin retorts, even as his eyes shine. Luhan and his Ma have it rough, and the fact that he so earnestly and casually accepts helping Jongin out makes him more emotional than he can say.

He counts out a handful of coins—pushing the copper pieces into Luhan’s hands, even though Luhan tries to give them back.

“Why do you always do this—you’re like family, family doesn’t pay for food or shelter!”

Jongin pokes his tongue out. “It’s payment for Ma, because she has to deal with you everyday.”

Luhan just balks, waving a sizzling pair of chopsticks in his face. “You’re going to regret saying that Jongin-”

Jongin rushes back across the street, waving the arm he’s not carrying the food with. “I’m sure I will! Lecture me when I come back!”

That was another thing about making Jongin go fetch breakfast from the market. Today was the estate’s designated market day, and Jongin would have to come back to pick up produce after delivering breakfast to his stepfather and stepbrothers.

Before he can get too far though, Luhan calls out after him, yelling with his absolutely gargantuan mouth—Jongin is convinced his jaw actually unhinges—“BE CAREFUL TODAY, THE GUARD IS OUT!”

Jongin yells back after a wagon crosses, so Luhan can still hear him. “I WILL! BE CAREFUL YOURSELF!”

He lets out a breath, because yelling has never agreed with his throat, getting on his way when he sees Luhan waving from his cart.

It’s absolutely vicious, the way the guard cracks down on the serving class. They seem to find real enjoyment from tormenting and wrongfully incarcerating the poor and the homeless.

If anyone should be locked away, Jongin thinks it should be the feudal lords and estate owners like Stepfather, who are the true criminals, exploiting and robbing others with every passing day.

Jongin keeps his head lowered when the guard, dressed in black, files past on their horses. Suddenly, he remembers the homeless man from earlier, rushing forward before the guard can arrest him for vagrancy.

The man is still in the same spot as he was earlier, and there’s a guard member already looking in his direction. “Father, there you are!” Jongin calls, transferring the containers to one hand so he can wave at him. The guard member looks away.

“Thank you, child,” The homeless man says once he gets close enough, looking deeply appreciative for the gesture.

Upon seeing the man again, face wrinkled and leathery with age, mottled with traces of dirt, Jongin moves to sit by him, offering one of the containers up for the both of them to share.

“Would you like to have breakfast with me?" Jongin asks. "I sure would like the company.”

The homeless man just smiles before tucking in. He thinks they make a pretty interesting sight, a homeless man and an orphan, soaked to the bone, sharing dumplings.

 

 

He manages to get home with the rest of the dumplings still hot, leaving the rest of the other container to the homeless man, scrambling to get back to the estate to set up breakfast so his stepfather won’t beat him for trying to serve them cold dumplings.

Once he enters the dining room though, they’re already having breakfast, steamed lotus leaves littered across the table, an assortment of dishes laid out, all of which his stepfather, Zitao, and Sehun pick at haphazardly, creating more waste than actually eating anything. Jongin is dumbstruck.

“You were taking too long, so I had just called one of the peasants in the field to fetch some breakfast. You can toss that, we won’t be eating it.”

Jongin is trembling, silent in his anger, though his whole body burns with the unspoken molten rage of living as a target of flippant ridicule. He turns for the kitchens, but before he can leave-

“Oh, and Jongin," Stepfather calls out, "wipe down the dining room and the tea room after we’re finished and get out the teawares, won’t you? We have a guest coming later.”

His stepbrothers are bursting into barely concealed giggles behind him, absolutely enjoying his humiliation.

“Yes, stepfather,” he answers gruffly, not daring to wipe at the hot tears that spill from his eyes as he walks away.

 

He begins to pull out the teawares, rinsing them with the water he’d brought from the well that morning, drying them with a cloth before his eyes wander back to the containers of dumplings. What a waste. He sets the teapot he’s cleaning down gently, taking the containers of food and opening the backdoor of the kitchens.

Strangely, despite the fact that Jongin spends most of his time in the kitchens preparing meals for his stepfamily, it’s a place of solace for him. They never come into the kitchens because ‘it’s for servants’, as he’s overheard his step siblings say, so as long as he’s in here, he usually doesn’t have to deal with them, at least not face to face.

His friends come as soon as the door opens, alerted by the tingling of the little round bells Jongin had attached to the outside frame getting jostled. Chanyeol and Baekhyun come bounding up first, nearly tripping over one another, the stray pups happy to see him. Chanyeol has a stripe of dirt across his face, and Jongin has to scrunch his face, looking up and away so he doesn’t get dirt in his mouth when he comes to greet him with kisses.

He’s wiping Chanyeol’s nose off with a rag and wrangling a whining Baekhyun in his lap when Kyungsoo wanders into the side yard, curiously bumping his nose into Jongin’s knee before snuffling at the container.

Jongin had nearly forgotten about the food. He thanks Kyungsoo with a pass of his hand over his ears before he’s opening the container, hand feeding Baekhyun while Kyungsoo and Chanyeol nose into the container themselves.

An annoyed yowl sounds from somewhere and there’s Jongdae, dropping down from the stone wall that leads out from one end to the road, and the other, to the fields.

“Don’t worry, we saved some for you too,” Jongin hums, lifting the container to show the dumplings in the one underneath.

Jongdae stretches, back arching as he lets out a yawn before promptly crossing the space between them to climb onto his lap too. He seems pleased. Baekhyun doesn’t mind, he seems to enjoy the snuggle. Jongin entertains them for a little longer, eyes scanning the side yard.

Ato had come back, but his clothes still haven't reappeared, nor have the furnishings and scrolls that have gone missing. It was just very curious. Perhaps it was the remote location of the estate, bordering between the countryside and the village center, already towards the outer corner of the kingdom?

Maybe not really having neighbors close by made them an easy target for roaming thieves. It would still be difficult, though, he would think, because while the estate is much less staffed than it once had been, there isn’t much time in any given day where any part of the estate is left to isolation or neglect.

Jongin doesn’t see any signs of anything out of the ordinary though, so he gets up, gently setting Baekhyun and Jongdae down. “You all take your time eating, okay? I’ll be back later, I have to clean up.”

Jongin wipes his hands off, making a mental note to get his friends bathed soon before he goes to clean the dining room, clearing away the mess that his stepfather and step siblings left, making sure to keep the food scraps.

His meals usually consisted of leftovers or rejected food that they left, and even if it was wasteful, it always meant that he had food to share with his friends.

 

Their guest turns out to be someone from the court. Jongin only gets his name though, not hearing his title. Xiumin. He wonders what his title is, if he is a noble or a general. Pouring the tea, Jongin can’t tell from his appearance. He’s rather fair, but he’s well muscled. The man is not a very easy tell.

Something about his eyes somehow seems familiar though.

He’s explaining something about a ball, where His Royal Highness Zhang Yixing will be presiding, when Stepfather notices Jongin listening.

“Sorry to interrupt, but Jongin, could you go fetch the cakes?” he asks, his voice that strained kind of sweet he exercises in front of visitors.

Even his voice betrays him, Jongin thinks to himself as he bows, making his way to exit. Stepfather even _sounds_ out of practice being kind when he speaks. Setting the delicate cakes onto individual porcelain plates before arranging them onto a serving tray, Jongin suddenly has a stray thought.

If he could just go to the ball to ask Prince Yixing if he could work in the kitchens at the palace, maybe he could get out of here.

He’s a little distracted with his thoughts, wondering how he'd manage to talk to the Prince, so he doesn’t notice when Tao sticks his foot out in front of him when he’s about to serve the cakes, tripping and dropping the tray, the plates breaking while his step brothers cackle cruelly.

Jongin doesn’t notice the way their visitor looks over in worry, too busy looking back to glare at his stepbrothers before he goes to collect the pieces, ears heating up at the way his stepfather explains to their guest that Jongin has ‘always been clumsy’.

He also misses that the reason Tao and Sehun had stopped laughing so suddenly was because his eyes had completely gone black the split second he had looked their way.

 

 —

 

The residual anger at being treated like horse manure hung over Jongin’s head like a cloud all the way to the market.

Mama Lu’s kind and usually contagious happiness softened it some, especially since Chengxiao had revealed to him that she was much happier under Mama Lu’s care, but it clung to him.

If there was some way to get out of that house, out from under his stepfather’s thumb, he thought to himself. If there were some miracle that could whisk him away, give him a different set of circumstances, something he could actually work with...

Looking up, Jongin catches sight of the palace on the hill overlooking the surrounding villages in the kingdom. It could be that simple, Jongin thinks. As simple and as impossible as getting work at the palace. He’s sure he isn’t the only person wanting to change his situation, daring to hope for something different, something _better_. But something has to change, and the opportunity to take that chance is on the horizon.

The ball.

Jongin clears his throat, trying to focus on sorting through the radishes and turnips before picking the ones he wants, handing over a couple copper coins to the vendor _āyí_ , who gives Jongin a couple of extra lotus and taro root free of charge. All the _āyís_ dote on him, and Jongin is always a mixture of flustered and grateful.

He knows they hurt, knowing that he’s lost his mother, but Jongin thinks their pity is wasted on him. He thinks back to the homeless person he’d had dumplings with, having trouble remembering his face for some reason now, though he doesn’t usually have trouble recalling faces. How odd.

Casting his gaze back up to the palace, Jongin’s resolve strengthens. He just needs to talk to the prince… Get a position in the kitchens, perhaps. If he has the opportunity, perhaps he could even talk to him about the condition of the homeless in the kingdom.

Prince Zhang certainly had a reputation for being fair and balanced, evenhanded in his decisions and manner. If he just _knew_ of the strife in the kingdom, Jongin knows he’d do something about it.

“Thief! Thief!” Someone calls out from behind him. It sounds like Chengxiao.

Whipping around, Jongin sees a man, hat tipped forward, shoving some dumplings and _fàn tuán_ down his sleeve and walking swiftly away from the direction of Mama Lu’s dumpling cart before hijacking Old Man Wei’s horse who was just a moment ago calmly chewing some hay by his stall.

The guard down at the other end of the market seem to take notice, stopping in their quest to track down whoever it was they were looking for earlier.

Looking behind him, the man kneadles the horse to go faster, and Jongin grumbles to himself, setting his groceries down at Shuei _āyí’s_ stall _._ “Oh no you don’t.”

Food is one thing, but stealing someone’s transportation and means of sustenance and livelihood? That, Jongin cannot stand for. Jongin is sick and tired of horse thieves.

Rushing forward, he gets the thief to rear up, since Old Man Wei’s horse Baixian knows him. But the thief just moves to take a separate path, veering around another stall to get away. Some vendors try to help by tossing vegetables, but this doesn’t deter the thief, despite scaring the horse.

He is, at the very least, a good horseman. Jongin can admit that much.

Jongin climbs up the wall bracketing one side of the marketplace. He needs a better vantage point. In the commotion, he locks his sights on the horse thief, running forward along the wall and dropping down when he’s ahead just enough to predict where the thief will try to make his escape.

“Uncle, can you move this watermelon really quickly, I’m going to try to get him,” Jongin whispers, squinting at the thief coming closer and closer.

“Are you sure, child?”

“Yes, please, hurry—”

Just as he removes the watermelon, Jongin steps onto the counter, launching himself at the oncoming thief and knocking him straight off his horse.

Baixian stops running after a moment, scared stiff of all the ruckus.

The thief tries to wrench himself free from Jongin’s grasp, but Jongin has had to wrangle angry rams and help birth stubborn calves in his lifetime, and try as he might, the thief is no match. His hat falls away from his face when he twists in Jongin’s deadlock to look back at the oncoming guard, fear in his eyes.

This gives Jongin pause. “Are you a fugitive?”

The man grits his teeth, dirt smeared cheeks dimpling. “You could say that.”

Before Jongin can get anything else in the way of an answer, the guard is upon them, hauling the thief up by the back of his shirt and covering his head with a black cloth.

“Thank you for your hard work, son,” a guard member says, dropping a bag of coins, clinking together as they hit the dirt.

“Nothing to see here,” another guard member calls out, “the guard of the Zhang Kingdom thank you for your cooperation in helping us catch this thief, who has been on the run for some time. Please return to your normal duties.”

Jongin frowns at the bag, picking it up. It’s not very frequent that the guard gives payment for helping to catch a common thief, even a recurring offender. Perhaps that man was a traitor of the kingdom, or a political fugitive of some kind?

It’s not until they’re leading him away that Jongin sees it. His family’s old insignia: 金, the character for gold, shows when the afternoon sunlight bounces off the back of the thief’s hemp shirt, scrubbed off and faded as it is. Stepfather had wanted all traces of his family name removed, but there it stayed.

At least Jongin knew the person who had taken Ato for a joy ride, then.

 

 

By the time Jongin’s finished at the market, leaving a couple radishes, a head of cabbage, and some fresh prawns with Mama Lu for her dumplings, his mood had completely shifted from that morning. There were opportunities for change, yet.

And Jongin was prepared to work for that change, especially if he could manage to get a job at the palace.

It also helped his mood some that he was being applauded for his bravery and courage everywhere he went at the market, for stopping ‘that awful horse thief’. People were fawning over him, saying that they wouldn’t know what to do without him. He’s never gotten so many free goods from the market in his life, not even with how much the marketplace _āyís_ regularlydote on him.

It felt as if, in the aftermath of catching the thief, anything was possible for him. Certainly, if he could just find a way to prove himself at the ball, there was a chance that he could find work at the palace.

So, preoccupied with hope, Jongin nearly forgets about his predicament at home. That is until he makes the mistake of arriving at the estate with a smile on his face. He doesn't realize until he catches sight of Stepfather's face twitching into a cruel smile of his own upon entering the main hall.

"You certainly took your time at the market, Jongin."

The smile immediately drops from Jongin's face. "I'm sorry Stepfather, I must have lost track of time—”

“Coming back smiling too, I see,” Stepfather continues, ignoring him. “It’s not as if you have duties to fulfill here at home or anything,” he drawls, reaching for the silk curtains that flank the entrance to the inner courtyard, fingers tracing over the pattern in the fabric before yanking harshly at them, causing the curtain to tear, a couple of the copper hooks holding the curtain getting bent with the force.

“The curtains need changing.”

Jongin clenches his jaw, letting out a breath and trying to stay calm. Stepfather was just trying to get a rise out of him, and Jongin wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction.

“Yes, Stepfather.”

“Let’s have a walk, shall we?”  
  
Jongin nods, knowing where this is headed. “After you, Stepfather.”  
  
Stepfather leads him back out through the front entrance, along the alley of the side of the property, where there is a wall to allow for some separation between the domestic and the wild animals.  
  
He doesn’t say a word until they walk past the kitchen compound, past the entirety of the outer courtyard, all the way past the stables. He only stops once they step onto the ledge of the first of the terraces that carve down the hill the estate sits on top of.  
  
Below them, Jongin can see Guanlin and Sicheng tending to the fields, with a couple of day hands that Stepfather hires on occasion. For some reason, they’re pulling the plow on their own, despite the fact that they have capable oxen.  
  
He doesn’t ask, but Stepfather answers anyways. He looks down at them for a moment, before shifting his gaze to the orange horizon, the sun settling low in the sky. “It’s their punishment for today. Since no one decided to come forward about the thefts, or about the state that Ato was in this morning.”  
  
Jongin can’t help himself. “It wasn’t their fault!” He stops, surprised at himself.  
  
“Oh? Then whose fault was it. Yours?”  
  
Jongin lowers his eyes. “It was certainly more my fault than it was theirs. I should be the one down there.”

“You think so?” Stepfather asks, turning to regard him.  
  
Jongin nods determinedly. “Yes.”  
  
Stepfather scoffs. “You should be so lucky to get off with a punishment so light. Someone I treat as my own, betraying the family, again and again? Do you take me for a fool, is that it?”  
  
“N-no, not at all Stepfather. I was merely saying—”  
  
The goading expression on Stepfather's face turns into something far more sinister: he pretends to be resigned. “I know exactly what you were saying, child. Come with me.”  
  
“I—”  
  
“I said, _come with me_ ,” Stepfather near-growls, grabbing Jongin by the back of his shirt and pulling him forward, not stopping until they cross to the other side of the main compound, where the entrance to the cellar is.  
  
Jongin begins hyperventilating, as the cellar has been a favorite place of Stepfather’s to administer punishments, and as much as he hates that he reacts this way, years of the same treatment bred a near instinctual fear of the place for him.  
  
Stepfather draws the knife he keeps with him at all times, bringing it up to Jongin’s throat, the blade just touching his skin. “Hold. Very. Still.”  
  
Jongin takes a short breath, angry, terrified tears already beginning to culminate in his eyes. Still, he does his best to stay still, because it’s better him than any of the others.  
  
“Good.”  
  
Suddenly, Stepfather pulls out the braid wound into a knot at the crown of his head, yanking his head back before hacking through his braid with his knife.  
  
Jongin freezes, terrified of what Stepfather would do if he had tried to move to stop him, but his body wracks with dry sobs at the sudden realization that most of his hair had just been severed from him, body overwhelmed by the humiliation.

More than status, more than the rank that hair length afforded someone, Jongin’s hair connected him to his mother. It was where they kept excess stores of magic, and something she had always told Jongin to take great pride and care for.

Whether Stepfather knew this, he did not know. But like everything else Jongin had, his stepfather knew he could always exercise his power to take it away.  
  
Jongin is not sure if it’s the short scraggly strands of his hair falling into his eyes that cause him to blink away tears or not.  
  
“Now people will see you for what you are. A criminal. A petty thief. You don’t think I’ve noticed? The things going missing around the property? The tapestries, a mirror here, cutlery there, teawares, one of the pigs?”  
  
Stepfather drops his severed braid to the ground, crushing it into the dirt with his heel, kicking open one of the cellar doors before shoving Jongin down into the underground pit, nose and chin knocking into the compacted earthen stairway when his face makes contact. He can already taste the metallic tang of blood on his tongue.  
  
“Don’t come out until it’s spotless,” Stepfather commands, still standing over the doorway into the cellar. “Reorganize the wines and the fermentation pots. This is where you’re going to live from now on. I don’t want you speaking to or conspiring with the others any further, or I will out you as the creature that you are. I could have you taken away from here, do you understand?”  
  
Jongin doesn’t respond, too caught up in his heart beating to burst in his ears.  
  
“I _said_ , do you _understand me_?” Stepfather spits, a clod of mucus landing on Jongin’s temple.  
  
Flinching, Jongin answers this time, making a sound of affirmation through the hands he has clutched over his nose and bleeding mouth. “Y-yes Stepfather,” he whispers, voice hoarse.  
  
“You’re lucky I don’t have time to properly punish you, boy. I have to see what I can do about securing the estate more properly.”  
  
Stepfather spits again, over his shoulder this time, before slamming the cellar doors shut, cutting out any of the sunlight coming in.  
  
It’s only when he can hear Stepfather’s boots crunching against the gravel fade into the distance that Jongin allows himself to cry. To really, truly cry.  
  
His body heaves with his sobs, blood running down his hands in gold rivulets in the dark, the only source of light in the room spilling from his open wounds.  
  
His magic, erratic in his anger and his humiliation and pain, burns his hands, bursts through ceramic wares, pot after pot cracking, then exploding. He manages to curl up on himself, clutching the sides of his skull, where black veins stemming from his eyes spiderweb out into his temples.

He loses consciousness shortly, his physical body unable to handle the unmitigated surge of painful energy; magic born from fear, from abuse.  
  
Untethered to the present, he experiences a vision. It’s part memory—his mother is there, cradling him. He’s a new star then, just a small babe. She’s wearing her amulet, red to the human eye, but to their kind, it’s the color of light energy.  
  
It glimmers and refracts prettily off of her neck and Jongin had reached up then, with questioning fingers, to grab it. She coos at him, saying, as she does again and again throughout their time together, that it will be Jongin’s when it comes time, when he grows up to need it.  
  
Suddenly, the vision shifts, an image of Stepfather appearing, admiring the amulet briefly before setting it into a cloth case, locking it away in a compartment behind his case of parchment scrolls and books in his study.  
  
Jongin shifts in his unconsciousness, the black in his veins receding as his features soften, relax.  
  
The gold flecks in his spilled blood begin to evaporate, finding spaces in the air and in any of the open corners of the cellar to suspend themselves, emitting a soft glow throughout the room.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Jongin doesn’t wake until late the next day, and doesn’t have an opportunity to test if his vision was true until a couple days after, when his stepfather and stepbrothers leave for the field—which is to say that they go horse riding around the grounds to shout down the new fieldhands, people Jongin had never really had the chance to get close to outside of occasionally being able to sneak out of the kitchens to offer them food and drink.

He sneaks into Stepfather’s study, a place he hasn’t been allowed inside for years, as Stepfather had always had someone else clean that room in particular. Jongin thinks he might understand why that is, now.

Carefully, using a silk cloth to open the drawer where he had seen Stepfather store the key, underneath some property documents and contracts, and even then underneath a cloth napkin.  
  
Jongin quickly commits to memory the way it was all laid out before removing the key with the silk cloth, turning to the parchment case and easing it to the side to reveal the compartment, heart beginning to pound in his ears.  
  
Quickly, he unlocks the compartment, pulling out the cloth case that housed the amulet, the energy from within it already calling to his own.  
  
Unfolding the case, he beholds the jewel, heart swelling in his chest as it glimmers brightly at him. It’s really there, he thinks to himself.  This source of magic, his mother’s magic, his ancestral magic, that his stepfather has been hiding from him.  
  
But Jongin is powerless as long as his stepfather and stepbrothers are alive because the estate belongs to his stepfather in name. And despite everything, without them he wouldn’t have an identity—no home, no property, no title, no name.

It wouldn’t do to take off with it now; Jongin doesn’t know how to use the amulet’s power at this point, and more than all of that, it would only be safe with him if he could escape safely, without his stepfather calling guards after him. If he threw away everything, if he had found anyone else, with Mama Lu and Luhan, or one of the marketplace _āyís_ to lodge with, he would be putting them in danger. Stepfather would just call them thieves, have them locked away.  
  
Without situating himself with his own land or finding another land owner to pledge his allegiance to, Jongin would still be considered the property of his stepfather.  
  
Until he can terminate that contract and the contracts of his loved ones still tied to the estate and subsequently to his stepfather, there would be too many lives at stake, and Jongin could never risk someone else’s livelihood for his own.

Carefully putting away the amulet and rearranging everything just the way he had found it, Jongin vows to himself to make it to the ball, and to take the amulet with him when the day comes.

 

 

—end part 1—

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally afforded a break away from the estate, Jongin happens upon a familiar face. Damned horse thief.

It’s not for some time that Jongin is allowed off the estate, even for regular duties like taking goods to market, bringing back fresh produce and meat, or harvesting wood from the bamboo forest the estate sits on the edge of. Stepfather has Sicheng, Qian and Guanlin cover those duties, wanting Jongin to feel as isolated and stifled as possible.  
  
However, he gets a chance to escape the estate one afternoon when Stepfather, Zitao and Sehun are off to meet with another family in the next township over.  
  
They had given him a list of chores to complete, and he's only gotten through a quarter of the duties that morning, and was just getting through one of the more time consuming ones (scrubbing the floor mats and leaving them out to dry) when Qian poked her head out from the back gate, a heap of dirty laundry in her arms.   
  
“How’s our _Kāi_ doing,” Qian teases, walking over. She drops the mountain of laundry onto a woven mat, tugging a large wooden washtub—much like the one Jongin’s using, out from behind the kitchen compound.  
  
“Oh, you know,” Jongin says, making a vague aristocratic gesture, breaking into giggles. He was never very good at impersonating Stepfather.  
  
Qian just laughs at him, pulling on the washtub to set herself up next to him. It scrapes up against the gravel, catching at the pebbles and stones, revealing the dirt underneath. She huffs in frustration.  
  
“These things should really be fitted with wheels if they’re going to be so heavy they’d throw out even an elephant’s back, don’t you say?”  
  
Jongin nods his agreement, raising a hand to lift the tub from off the ground with his magic, moving it next to his own before sending the pebbles and stones skittering back with a flick of his wrist to make the yard grounds a bit more even.  
  
“Or you could just have your own personal starchild do your bidding, I suppose,” she says with a grin, pulling the sitting stool out from the tub, dusting it off with a rag before setting it down opposite him.  
  
Jongin grins back at her. “Starchild on duty,” he says, saluting.  
  
Qian just shakes her head, taking several of the pails sitting in the tub onto a yoke she settles over her shoulders to fill at the well behind them. “Sometimes, even starchildren need to be off-duty, too.”  
  
Jongin doesn’t have anything to say to that, mouth twisting in a wistful smile. Qian knows their lot in life just as much, if not more than the rest of them. ‘Off-duty’ just sounds like a far-fetched idea. There’s work or there’s nothing.  
  
Well, sometimes there’s going somewhere else for work. That reminds him.  
  
“I miss Xiao,” Jongin admits, scrubbing down the next floor mat, first against the washing board, then with a boar hair brush.  
  
“I miss her too,” Qian responds, pouring out the pails of water she’s carrying on her shoulders into her tub. “You haven’t even been able to see her at the market for some time, have you?”  
  
Jongin shakes his head. “Not since he banned me from seeing you guys. I’ve been on indefinite house arrest.”  
  
“Tch.” Qian scoffs, lip raising in disgust. “That slimy, slimy man.”  
  
Jongin sighs, scrubbing his frustrations out against a stain on the mat.“I don’t think it would have really been any different if we had told him that Ato had been stolen. He never believes us anyway.”  
  
“You’re right.” She pauses. “Oy, how long is your list today?”  
  
Jongin stops scrubbing to count back on his fingers. “Aired out the rooms in the inner compound, swept down all the partitions and put them out to sunbathe, changed out Stepfather’s bedding, polished mirrors, polished door handles, greased the sliding mechanisms for the doors...I’ve still got to finish cleaning the rest of these floor mats, let them dry and then reinstall them after i sweep out the estate, change out the tapestries for the new moon, wash and dry the old ones, turn over all the fermentation pots in the cellar, feed our animal friends, clean out the stables, groom the horses, oil their saddles, sweep out the inner courtyard and outside the front gate… I think that’s it. Why?”  
  
“That’s actually not too bad. Outside of stable and animal duties, most of those overlap with mine, and I could probably get Zhengting, Ziyi and Xiao Gui to do stable duty.” Qian is looking up as she’s scrubbing the clothes down, as if she’s calculating something involving the new field hands.  
  
“Why would they have to—”  
  
“Because _you_ are taking the extra _méiguī huā bĭng_ , the rose flower cakes I’ve made, to Chengxiao, her parents and Lu and his Ma.”  
  
“Even so, that wouldn’t take more than—”  
  
“And then,” Qian continues, eyes flashing at him because Jongin keeps interrupting, “Our Jonginnie is going to have a nice afternoon to himself off somewhere in the woods, with some nice snacks that Qian packed him, because he’s not been allowed off the grounds since the last crescent moon, and he deserves a break.”  
  
Jongin blinks. “But, but Qian—”  
  
“Don’t ‘but Qian’ me.” She snaps, flicking a wrung out garment in Jongin’s direction. “Be a good boy and finish those off. You can have the afternoon to yourself, just come back before supper in case we need your help. The three little pigs are spending the night over there, so you might as well have some time away while you can.”  
  
Jongin flops forward, feeling overwhelmed by Qian’s generosity and by the support of the family he has here, even with the newer members. “Thank you, _dà jiě_ ,” he says, voice soft with his embarrassment and gratitude.  
  
Qian just tsks at him, kicking gently at his leg. “Don’t you _dare_ ‘older sister’ me. I feel old enough hanging around with you. And besides, you’re doing me a favor by delivering the _huā bĭng_ to my love and the people that are supporting her.”  
  
“Wait. You and Chengxiao—?”  
  
Qian pauses in her washing. “Yes, what of it?”  
  
Jongin splutters. “It’s just—I’ve always thought of you two as my _sisters_!”  
  
“Oh come _off_ it, you great child!” Qian laughs, splashing water at his face.  
  
  
  
  
  
Delivering the flower cakes doesn’t take much time at all.  
  
Everyone was inside the compound that many of the vendors live in together, sitting around a table in the shared courtyard. Mama Lu, Luhan, and Xiao were working on folding dumplings at the table, and Xiao’s parents were doing their basket weaving.  
  
They were delighted at the pastries, of course, especially since _huā bĭng_ are usually reserved for the noble and royal class. They’re a real treat.  
  
The thing that took the longest time was dragging Xiao out to ask about her relationship with Qian and for what reason he was kept in the dark about it.  
  
He’s a little envious of Xiao, not just for her happiness in her relationship, but with the community that she has here. Although she’s separated from Qian, she now lives solely with people who truly support and care for her. He’s happy for her, but that’s something he longs for himself.  
  
Jongin contemplates staying and helping out with the dumplings, but he had brought his shadow play case with him, and it wouldn’t do to distract them from their work, but he also doesn’t want to squander the opportunity of a free afternoon, especially after being stuck on the estate for so long.  


  
  
In the end, Jongin decides to head out on his own, towards the river. There’s a spot he likes to visit that he hasn’t been able to for some time.  
  
His mother once brought him there, when he was very young. It’s where she first began to teach him how to shadow play. It’s a place he remembers quite fondly, and he’s excited to get back to it.  
  
He passes underneath the mulberry trees that line the bank on this side of the river, taking a deep breath. They perfume the air with a delicate, sweet fragrance, and Jongin can’t help but to shake a couple berries off to snack on. He stashes a couple fistfuls in a cloth napkin, some to eat, most to bring back for the others.  
  
He tries a couple of other branches to see if the fruit will fall off; mulberries are frequently fruiting and perennial, and they usually bear more fruit that can be picked. Jongin is of the impression that the kingdom could easily plant more fruit bearing trees and plants and vegetables that people could eat, rather than the ornamental trees and shrubs that cover the palace gardens.  
  
In general it’s downright cruel, Jongin thinks, as he wipes some of the juice that dribbles down his chin with his sleeve, the way that edible plants are largely segregated into plots that feudal lords own, and that anyone without land is left to destitution unless they are working that plot.  
  
Even then, it’s not as if it’s a quality of life worth living, subject to someone’s fits of anger, to their manipulation and control.  
  
Tying off the cloth napkin around the strap of the case he’s carrying on his back, he sets off again, checking to see if the berries get too jostled around as he walks. The napkin swings heavily, but it’s secure.  
  
Passing into the bamboo forest, Jongin looks up at the fortress of the grasses growing thickly together, nearly obscuring the sky. How Jongin wants to be like the bamboo, bending but never breaking.  
  
The sun filtering down through the leaves, and the way the forest smells alive makes Jongin feel like he can breathe in a way that he hasn’t been able to in a long time, and again, he silently thanks Qian for giving him this chance to have some respite.  
  
He really needed a break from the estate. A real one, not just an errand in the village, but a real break. Away from chores, away from the worry of displeasing Stepfather one way or another. There was always _something_.  
  
To be able to forget, if just for an afternoon, was a true treat in and of itself.  
  
Jongin makes his way through the forest, about to cross a stream feeding down into the river when he hears a shout. He makes his way towards the sound, spotting the small cliff face that the river had carved into the land.  
  
The closer he gets to where he’d thought he heard the sound, the more he hears the distinct sound of water splashing up against the banks of the river. Had he just imagined the noise?  
  
“Take that!” So Jongin wasn’t hallucinating. He distinctly hears the sound of grunting and the occasional sound of water being disturbed. Is someone being mugged in the river? Or worse?  
  
Jongin gets closer, concealing himself behind a thicket of bamboo. He scoots as close as he dares to, peering through to see if he should interfere.  
  
What he sees looks to be two men sparring. Both of them have their tunics off, just fighting in their trousers, so it doesn’t seem like either was dragged in unwillingly. They also seem to be fairly evenly matched.  
  
Jongin chews on his bottom lip. They were pretty well built, now that he’s really looking. He shakes his head. Neither of them seemed to be hurt, and Jongin is starting to feel like he’s intruding at this point.  
  
He should get going. Jongin didn’t come here to spy on other men. Regardless of their nice physiques. He lets out a breath, feeling his cheeks heat at the embarrassment of his own attraction, especially given the situation.  
  
Jongin resists the urge to sigh at himself, not wanting to draw attention to his position. It would probably be best if he just got out of there and went back on his way.  
  
He crawls backward a bit, out of the immediate cluster of bamboo shoots, before turning himself around so he can see where he’s going.  
  
Once he does though, he notices a water deer nearby. It’s grazing, mostly hidden by bush, and hasn’t noticed his presence.  
  
Not wanting to startle the deer, he backtracks the opposite way, keeping low to the ground and slowly backing up the way he had come. Of course, he snaps a twig underneath the heel of his hand as he does this, startling the deer, who takes off through the bush and blows his cover.  
  
Shit.  
  
“Who goes there?” One of the men asks, threat in his voice.  
  
Jongin tries to stay quiet, freezing and hoping they just assume it was just some frightened animal.  
  
Another voice sounds then. “Ey ey don’t—! Put it dow—”  
  
Before he can process it, something flashes past Jongin’s face, and from the sound of it, one of them is close. In his panic, his magic explodes around him, pushing leaves and brush out of the way. It clears the area enough for him to see one of the sparrers launching himself at him.  
  
It’s the thief again. “You?!” It’s all Jongin can get out, pinned down by a very wet, and very topless horse thief, chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath. He didn’t seem nearly this attractive when they’d last met, Jongin thinks.  
  
“How long have you following me? Who sent you?” The questions are asked quietly but threateningly, and Jongin wonders if the man is much more than he had first appeared.  
  
But then water drips off the man’s hair onto Jongin’s cheek, making him wince. It must have been a throwing knife. “What kind of thief goes around the forest throwing knives at random...” Jongin mutters.  
  
The man has the gall to smirk at this. “It isn’t random if it found you, is it?” He pauses, as if waiting for a response, before coming to a realization himself. “Wait—wait. Thief? Oh, you’re—you’re just the boy from the market. So that’s where I recognize you from. Your hair...it was bound before, was it not?”  
  
Jongin blinks, hand reaching up for his hair even as it’s being held down by the man’s grip. “It...it’s been cut,” Jongin mumbles, eyes darting around defensively, feeling his pride smart a bit at the comment. “In any case, it’s cruel that you would throw a knife where you couldn’t see—you could have hurt an animal you know, there was a water deer just there!”  
  
The man’s expression softens, looking over to where Jongin gestures with his chin. “I’m sorry for striking where I shouldn’t have.” He reaches for the cut on Jongin’s cheek, pulling away when Jongin flinches out of instinct. “Sorry, I just. I could make a poultice for it, if—if you’d like, I just—thought you were...someone else.”  
  
Jongin scrunches his nose, wincing a little as the expression he makes stretches the wound on his cheek. “Could you get off of me first?”  
  
The man scrabbles away from him, at complete odds with the way he had approached him. “Sorry, of course.”  
  
“Your high-”  
  
The man’s face goes blank for a moment, as if just remembering that his friend was still down in the river, about to climb up the bank behind him.  
  
“Fan-fan! No worries!” he calls out, getting up and walking over to wrench his knife from out of the stalk of bamboo. “My, uh, hi _-dao_ is fine! I just—uh—ran into an old friend up here, no need to come up!”  
  
Jongin frowns up at him as he sits up, still a little wary. “Why would your friend be worried about your knife?”  
  
The man just half smiles, cheek dimpling. “It’s um. Expensive. One of a kind.”  
  
“Uh-huh,” Jongin says, brows quirking in suspicion.  
  
“It’s true!”  
  
  
  
  
  
Jongin decides to ask the question after horse-thief-turned-kind-shirtless-stranger-with-dimples starts applying the poultice to his cheek. “So, is stealing other people’s horses your main source of work, or do you mostly spend your time trying to maim strangers you think are following you around in the forest?”  
  
This, at least, gets the man to flush. So he does experience embarrassment. Good to know.  
  
“Neither of those, actually. That was all—” he pauses, carefully adding another application of the paste of crushed herbs to Jongin’s cheek before ripping off the cuff of his trousers, biting down on one end and tearing it even smaller with his teeth. “That was all highly circumstantial,” he finishes, firmly pressing the folded strip of fabric over the wound.  
  
Jongin would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little transfixed.  
  
“Were you though?” he continues, eyes flicking up from the injury to hold Jongin’s gaze, eyes questioning.  
  
“Was I—?”  
  
“Following me. Were you?” There’s a twinkle in his eyes now, and the dimple is back. That godsforsaken dimple.  
  
Jongin splutters. “You think I truly have nothing better to do than to be following some sorry-ass, horse-thieving, clothes-stealing fugitive around?”  
  
It comes out of his mouth faster than he even thinks it, but the man hardly flinches. In fact, he almost seems amused.  
  
“Hey now, the time I took _your_ horse, I had the time to leave payment for my temporary usage.”  
  
At this, Jongin’s expression darkens, feeling like a fool for forgetting. He’d let his guard down, not only for a stranger, but one who had cost him one of the few things that tied him to his mother.

The hair that had grown when she was still alive, that held onto traces of her love, her magic, that was _never_ coming back.  
  
The man had mentioned it too, how could it have slipped his mind? Surely his charms could never outweigh the absolute arrogance he carried with him, or the fact that Jongin had to pay for his crimes. Jongin wants to wipe the smirk off his face. “The payment you left wasn’t enough, thief.”  
  
The man blinks, surprised at his sudden change in tone. “I had the horse back before dawn, if I recall—”  
  
Jongin wills down the angry surge of magic that threatens to rise. It’s less stable now, with his emotions the way they are, and the stores of calm, loving and cared for magic in his hair cut away. Despite this, he knows he doesn’t need this to be messier than it already has been.  
  
Jongin lets out a shaky breath, voice much more controlled than he would have expected it to come out. “You wanted to know why my hair was like this, didn’t you?”  
  
He’s met with a blank stare, the man looking afraid to speak again. Good.  
  
“It got cut off because I couldn’t explain why Ato was behaving strangely that morning. Today’s the first time I’ve been able to leave the estate at all since I caught you at the market. I haven’t been able to speak to anyone since then because I’ve been been barred from speaking to any of my friends. I took responsibility because I didn’t want any of the blame to fall on anyone else, and still, one of my friends was expelled from the property. Your money meant _nothing_. And Ato,” he lets out a laugh, and it sounds just as pathetic as he feels, admitting all of this, “Ato isn’t _my_ horse, not at all.”  
  
Reliving his punishment like this doesn’t make it better, and as awful, ill timed, ignorant, and arrogant the thief was, he wasn’t the person that dealt the abuse nor the isolation.  
  
“I’m—I’m so sorry,” the man says, after a moment of stunned silence. His remorse is evident in the way he doesn’t look up from his hands. “I didn’t—I didn’t know things were that way—”  
  
Jongin lets out a breath. “It must be nice, the world you live in.”  
  
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say _that_.” He chances a glance up at Jongin then, a sad smile pulling at his lips. “Why do you figure I’m always running away from somewhere?”  
  
That gives Jongin pause. “I don’t well know, I don’t give much thought to the circumstances of political fugitives turned thieves. I try not to make acquaintances with enemies of the kingdom if I can help it.”  
  
The man takes a step forward then, looking like he’s ready to confide in Jongin something he’s not sure he should know. “But you have a choice there, don’t you. What if you never had that choice?”  
  
Jongin frowns at that. “Well, I mean, the guard doesn’t give anyone much of a choice there, do they?”  
  
“I mean more than that, though, what if there was nothing you could do, nowhere else you could be—”  
  
“And no matter what you do, there’s no escape? You’ll always end up where you started?” Jongin scoffs. “I think I might have an idea. Anyway, I should really...get back on my way, if we’re finished talking about life circumstances and who was punished for whose wrongdoings.”  
  
Jongin hikes the basket against his back higher, feeling both out of place and angry at himself for oddly wanting to comfort the other man.  
  
He looks almost timid now, smaller in the knowledge that he's done wrong. There's something genuine in his eyes that makes Jongin want to shy away. Jongin can't trust his feelings, not now, not when the man looks at him like _that_.

“My apologies, again…" The stranger says, "If—if ever there was anything I could do for you, please don’t hesitate to ask for a favor. I don’t know how I’d repay you, but I’d want to make things right. I really would.”  
  
Jongin scoffs. “Somehow I doubt that you would be able to carry such a thing out,” he says, turning to make his leave. 

And that was supposed to be that. But, because this is Jongin’s life, his exit was stalled.  
  
“Wait! You have blood..! Down the leg of your trousers—heavens aren't you feeling that?”  
  
Jongin pauses, looking down at himself. “..Blood? I don’t see—”  
  
“It's back here,” the man says, hand outstretched. “Before you go, anyway, allow me to just treat—”  
  
Jongin turns to see the back of his leg, definitely stained and dripping a bloody red, gripping his leg in panic, only to feel absolutely nothing. It's not often that he bleeds red, unless his magic is running terribly low. Lifting his red stained fingers to sniff at them curiously, it dawns on him.  
  
“ _Zhī_ —It’s _juice_ ,” Jongin gets out, giggles coming unbidden at the ridiculousness of the situation, especially with how concerned the man looks for Jongin’s sanity. He tries to continue, turning back towards him, shaking his hand in an attempt to dispel the confusion. It’s immensely difficult because he can’t stop _giggling_.  
  
“The—gods—I had picked berries—mulberries—they were crushed during your whole ‘let me tackle you while I’m topless’ spiel,” he hiccups, lifting his hand so that he can smell the substance for himself. “Just, here, smell—It’s not blood, it’s berry juice!”  
  
He can’t stop giggling, and he’s not sure if he _could_ at this point. The man’s _face_ just then—he was absolutely petrified. Did he think he’d done this?

It doesn’t help now that the man also starts breaking into his own hiccupy giggles at the realization. In Jongin’s giggly haze, doubling over, he briefly wonders if laughter is infectious.  
  
Despite the situation that he’s found himself in—faced with a thief he shouldn’t be getting along with, who shouldn’t be here, while he’s in the forest, where _he_ shouldn’t be—Jongin feels inexplicably happy.  
  
He hasn’t laughed like this in a long time.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was supposed to get this done in three lengthy parts but taking on the second chunk was psyching me out because So Much Stuff Happens so I'm going to be posting shorter chapters to help me get through this bitch. Sorry for the long ass wait :c life has been a lot lately.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting to know each other a little more personally...

“So—um. By what name are you called?” The dimpled stranger finally asks, once they’ve both calmed down from their mutually hysterical giggling fit.  
  
“What name am I called?” Jongin repeats, smiling a little to himself. “I am called Kai. At least, that’s what I am called most, back at the estate. Kai, as in open’s _kāi_.”  
  
Jongin blinks, thinking over what he just said. “Well—er—not like ‘open for business’ or something like that—”  
  
The stranger bursts out laughing, eyes shining even as they narrow with amusement. “Well then my name is Lay. That’s what they call me, anyway, back at the palace.”  
  
“The palace huh?” Jongin asks, head cocking to the side. “No wonder you’re getting chased around all the time. You’re not supposed to be round here.”  
  
‘Lay’ wrinkles his nose at that. “Hey, sometimes you just have to get out sometimes. Take a break.”  
  
Jongin feigns disbelief, scoffing at him. “Mhm, whatever you say, fugitive turned horse-thief.”  
  
This earns him a pout. An awfully cute one.  
  
Jongin’s eyes run over Lay’s pouty expression, feeling almost generous. Despite the odd situation he’s found himself in, he’s… enjoying himself, and enjoying having company. Someone who shouldn’t be where he is running into someone else who shouldn’t be where _he_ is.    
  
Somehow, it works.  
  
“ _Lèi_ , huh?” Jongin asks, laughing. “So you’re tired all the time? I can’t quite picture it.”  
  
It’s a little hard for Jongin to, given that the few times he’s seen him were when he was chasing him on horseback and now, when he’s topless from sparring, little pools of water having collected in the deep wells of his collarbones, the dregs of water still left there even though he hasn’t been particularly still.  
  
Lay hums, biting his lip. “More like, I make everyone else tired.”  
  
Jongin snorts, wondering if that’s a come on or if he’s being serious. “I guess that would make more sense.”  
  
Before he can respond to Jongin though, his friend comes up the bank, interrupting his thought. “Wángzǐ…?”  
  
Jongin blinks. The prince?  
  
Lay just looks over, looking like he’d completely forgotten that he wasn’t alone when he’d found Jongin. “Oh, wàng jì! Wǒ wàng jì le!” Lay says to his concerned looking friend. “I forgot you were down there, Wu—Wufan!”  
  
Ah, ‘wàng jì’. Not ‘wángzǐ’. Jongin must still be too wound up in his plan for the ball, it’s making him misinterpret things.  
  
Lay speaks up then, after staring at his friend with an expression that Jongin can’t really interpret. He hopes he’s not being too forward thinking that it’s because he wanted time alone with Jongin, but he doesn’t pry.  
  
“Um, actually, my real name is.  It’s uh jia.. Jiāshuài,” Lay—Jiashuai says, eyes flicking up at his friend—Wufan, was it?  
  
Jiashuai, Jongin thinks to himself.  Add handsome? Jongin doesn’t know if you could actually add anymore but keeps this to himself. “Mm. I’m sure they get a real kick out of that one at the palace.”  
  
It comes off as snarky, but their banter thus far mostly felt like...flirty barbs, if Jongin is being honest with himself. However, Wufan snorts at his comment, covering his mouth with a fist.  
  
Jongin wasn’t expecting that. He doesn’t understand the significance of Wufan’s laughter, wondering if Jiashuai gets mocked for his name often.  
  
“What are you then, anyway,” Jongin asks, ignoring his friend. “an apprentice?”  
  
Jiashuai balks, blinking at him for a second before nodding. “Yes. That’s exactly what I am,” he says, pointedly ignoring his friend as well.  
  
Wufan looks like he’s trying to reign in his laughter, which Jongin is sure is his attempt to curb his immature sense of humor.  
  
He’s not sure if he likes this Wufan character yet, especially gauging how uptight Jiashuai seemed to get in his presence.  
  
Jongin lets out a sigh, “That’s where I want to be. The palace. When I can get out of my home, that’s what I want to be doing. Being an apprentice, or perhaps, working in the kitchens. Put in a good word for me?  
  
Jiashuai nods. “Right, yes I will. Do that.”  
  
Jiashuai’s misgivings about his place and current situation seem to fall away, but Jongin figures he’s just not quite ready to divulge his opinions around his friend.  
  
They seem to be close enough though, Jongin thinks to himself, as he observes Wufan tossing Jiashuai his garbs—now standard robes rather than the hemp shirt of Jongin’s that he’d been wearing the last time.  
  
He’s not sure if it’s because Jiashuai isn’t wearing his shirt—of course he isn’t, it was dirty and it’s nearly been a moon cycle, why would he be—or because he’s playfully smacking Wufan that Jongin’s stomach feels a little sour.  
  
Jongin’s probably drawing conclusions too fast, anyways. Something that tastes like childish jealousy curls bitterly on the back of his tongue, and before he’s really sure he’s speaking, it comes out.  
  
“Did you want to see something—something magic?”  
  
He’s about to take it back, seeing the apprehension on Wufan’s face, but then he sees Jiashuai’s eyes light up.  
  
“Of course, yes.”  
  
Jongin doesn’t know until much later how much he needed to hear that yes.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Jongin decides, on their way through the forest, that maybe he was okay having an audience today after all. It’s been a long time since he’s been able to do shadowplay for anyone he actually liked, and he hasn’t had the chance to do shadowplay for someone new since—well, since his mother was still with him.  
  
He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little excited.  
  
“Can I have a hint about where we’re headed?” Jiashuai asks, following after him, holding back a branch for Wufan.  
  
Jongin shakes his head. “It’s a surprise. It’s a very secret spot. You’ll have to keep it a secret for the rest of your life. The both of you.”  
  
Jiashuai frowns at him when Jongin looks back to see his expression. “You’ve got to be incredibly trusting to think two strangers you’ve only really just met would keep your secret safe, Kai.”  
  
Jongin grins at his use of the name. When Jiashuai says it, it doesn’t carry the same tone as when his stepfamily says it, nor is it the sort of mocking tone that his friends use to make fun of his stepfamily either. There’s something so simple and trusting, the way he says it. It almost makes him wish Kai was his real name.  
  
“There are a couple reasons I don’t have to worry about either of you telling anyone. First, you can’t actually get there unless you have permission.”  
  
Jiashuai looks affronted at that, narrowly dodging a sprig of bamboo leaves. “Permission from _who_ , exactly?”  
  
“That part’s a secret, too,” Jongin says, humming. “And then, if you try to divulge its whereabouts without permission, there’s a curse that shrivels up your tongue and travels down through your insides and leaves you something like a human version of dried loquat, without the candied taste.”  
  
Wufan ducks through some foliage, apparently having been listening but not responding until now. “Why should we believe you?”  
  
Jiashuai stops then. “And why haven’t _you_ been turned into human loquat?”  
  
Jongin turns to them, feeling mischievous. “You don’t have to believe me, you could try it yourself. You’re not going to remember the way; the forest is enchanted, but if you do try, good luck. The guard has been especially good about driving away medicine folk, healers and magic practitioners so you'd have a hard time getting any help about being shriveled up. And as for why I haven’t dried up, well, I _do_ have permission.”  
  
Jiashuai looks both charmed and conflicted about this information, not sure if he should believe him or not. Jongin doesn’t much mind. It’s not like he’s lying. If he wants to come, he’ll come.  
  
“Why did I agree to coming with you to your cursed spot again?” Jiashuai asks, his brow quirking in an awfully handsome way.  
  
Jongin giggles at that. “Because you wanted to see something magic.”  
  
“Ah, yes. My true weakness: Curiosity.”  
  
Jongin snorts. “Yes, I’m sure it was that same ‘Curiosity’ that drove you to taking things that don’t belong to you, eh horse thief?”  
  
Jiashuai splutters. “Hey, I thought we went over that!”  
  
Wufan leans forward to shut his jaw. “I like this one,” Wufan says quietly.  
  
Jongin decides then that he likes Wufan too.  
  
  
  
Along the way, Jongin had decided he’d had enough of Jiashuai’s questions and proposes that they play a game of “I spy”.  
  
It’s his turn now.  
  
“Hm… I spy...Something that begins with an s.”  
  
Jiashuai frowns, looking around them, throwing out guesses. “Sky?”  
  
Jongin beams. “Nope.”  
  
“Slug?”  
  
“Nope.”  
  
“Or is it snail?” Wufan offers.  
  
“Nope.”  
  
“Okay mm.. is it soil?” Jiashuai asks.  
  
Jongin shakes his head, prompting Jiashuai to frown. “Yi...Wufan, did you have any other guesses?” Jiashuai asks.  
  
Wufan takes another look around them. “Stream?”  
  
Jongin shakes his head again. “Nope.”  
  
“I give up. What is it?” Jiashuai asks, now looking a little put out.  
  
Jongin smiles at that. For a horse thief, the man sure pouts a lot. “It’s a song.”  
  
“How do you see a song?” Jiashuai asks, brows knitting in his confusion.  
  
Jongin reaches forward to tilt his chin up, so he can see the butterflies that Jongin had been watching, wings aflutter, dancing together to a song that only they can hear. “You look.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
Something selfish in Jongin makes him want to bottle the look of sheer awe on Jiashuai’s face.  
  
He looks captivated, like Jongin had just done something unimaginable—peeled away the sky so that he might see what lies behind the clouds.  
  
It makes Jongin want to show him more.  
  
For now, Jongin thinks this is enough. He hasn’t been able to make someone else feel wonder in the longest time, and he wants to cherish it. He feels a tugging sensation behind his navel then.  
  
“We’re just about here,” he warns. “Don’t fight it, or the pressure will collapse your lungs.”  
  
Jiashuai’s hand curls around his wrist. “Don’t fight _what_?”

Before Jongin can answer him though, the trees begin to warp into one another, creating a spiral before them. They only have a split-second to recognize it as a spiral before it pulls them in.  
  
Jongin allows it to take him through, just like he has so many times in his youth.  
  
The sensation is something fizzly, like all the spaces between all the cells in his body expand, then he’s being wound tight—fit to burst—but before it can begin to hurt, he’s there.  
  
It left him right outside the waterfall that hid the opening of the cave. Jiashuai and Wufan weren’t so lucky; they’re sprawled out on the ground, and it looks like Wufan’s backside got dunked in one of the small pools of water that collect the water from the falls as it travels down.  
  
Both of them are coughing somewhat violently, but Jongin knows they’ll be okay. They made it through, after all.  
  
There’s something beautiful here, in the air. It smells just like it always did, like the air is charged with stores of untouched magic.  
  
Here, Jongin feels a secret confidence that’s been stripped away through the years return to him. It’s a bittersweet feeling, but he drinks it in anyway, knowing he won’t have time to come back for a long while.  
  
With that, he turns to the two men struggling to sit up.  
  
“You two just about ready, now?”  
  
  
  
  
  
Yixing has taken to periodically pinching himself to make sure he’s not dreaming.

Everytime he does it he surprises himself.  
  
Apparently, the cave has special magic in its walls that helps Kai make paper dance and fold itself. Kai had explained this while the various formations and the walls themselves begin to glow a pulsating red color, and the ends of his hair began to glow as well.  
  
Yixing doesn’t know whether to be fascinated or terrified. He thinks he’s feeling equally both.  
  
Wufan decided to stay outside of the cave to ‘stand watch’ as he’d said. Yixing isn’t sure if it’s because he dislikes being underground or if he wanted to give Yixing some time alone with Kai.  
  
Either way, he’s grateful he’s the only one privy to...all of this.  
  
Kai had said something like, “the world would be a little boring without some magic,” just as the cave began to seemingly light in his presence, lifting his hands to show Yixing that he could use the magic to animate the paper figures he carried with him on his back.  
  
“Remind me to never question anything you ever say again,” he says, watching the paper figures fold themselves, a stray piece of paper folding itself into a butterfly to land on his nose.  
  
Yixing barely dares to breathe. This was certainly not how he was expecting his day to turn out; in the company of a beautiful magical boy, one who is as terribly good at pushing his buttons as he is at leaving him speechless.  
  
“I thought your whole ‘secret spot that leaves you cursed if you breathe a word of it to another being’ was just. A jest,” Yixing whispers, as the butterfly flits away to join another.  
  
Kai snorts at him. “I don’t joke about magic,” he says, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Yixing surprises himself with how much he wants to _taste_.  
  
“I’d much rather make jokes about apprentices that do terribly rash, foolish things. Like run away from the palace even though they’d already been chased after by the guard, “ Kai continues, a mischievous sparkle in his eye even as he teases him. “You really have no sense of self preservation, do you?”  
  
Yixing huffs. “Okay, says the person that launched himself at someone on moving horse—”  
  
Kai nudges him with his knee, a little pout on his lips. “It’s not like you gave me many other options—”  
  
Yixing lays back against the wall of the cave, arms crossing over his chest. “You could have let me get away.”  
  
Kai snorts at him, the paper puppets pausing in their play before continuing on. “As if. How would Old Man Wei have been able to get his leftover stock back home, or even get home from the market in the first place? He has a bad back.”  
  
“Well—”  
  
“Well, nothing. Someone might have been able to help him, but most of us don’t have livestock of our own. Baixian is his livelihood, not just a means for you to escape. Your actions _do_ have consequences on others.”  
  
Yixing shuts his mouth.  
  
“Maybe being in the palace makes it hard for you to see it, but the conditions of the working folk, the poor, people that are just trying to survive down here? Something like losing your horse could be _it_.”  
  
Kai’s brows are furrowed, and there’s a passionate anger in his eyes that Yixing hasn’t seen since—well, since he’d tackled him horseback. Hearing it is one thing, but seeing how much Kai cares about it because he _feels_ it tears at him.  
  
Yixing picks at his robes. “It’s not that I thought it was particularly _good_ ,” he says, fingers running through frayed cloth. “and I’m… sure it’s no excuse, but I was a little preoccupied with making my escape—I know now how careless my actions were. But when you’re running from the guard, it’s difficult to take all of this into consideration...”  
  
Kai’s upper lip curls in disgust at the mention. “Speaking of the guard,” he says, “that’s another issue we have to deal with. With every passing day it seems the guard find extraordinarily petty reasons to unrightfully incarcerate poor folks, lock them up and leave them to rot. For what? Whose orders are they carrying out? What good does it do?”  
  
Yixing nods at this. “I never particularly liked them much, myself,” he says, agreeing.  
  
Kai glowers at the paper figures, folding themselves into the palace, before morphing into a great monster, with a cavernous mouth and pointed teeth. “It doesn’t help that the royal family is leagues beyond hearing anyone out. Where do you think the power of the guard really comes from? They’re brutish, for sure. But they are allowed to be because of the authority they’ve been given.”    
  
Kai’s eyes are shining, angry gold flecks swimming inside his pupils. Yixing doesn’t know if it should scare him, that Kai is beautiful even in his rage, but he knows he has much to learn from his perspective.  
  
Yixing can only bite his tongue at this point, though, given the lie he’s allowed himself to agree to. Some prince he is. “Ah...yes, that. The royal family definitely...has its problems.”  
  
Kai hums, settling against him. Yixing feels his body thrum with electricity at the contact. Is this magic or just his own attraction?  
  
“I don’t know,” Kai says, seeming oblivious to the reaction he’s inciting. “I always thought Yixing would do better than his parents.”  
  
Despite himself, Yixing finds himself smiling a little at that. “And what makes you think that? I happen to know he stirs up a lot of trouble in the palace.”  
  
Kai shifts, snuggling ever closer, and Yixing swallows nervously, not because he doesn’t like it, but because of what it could _mean_.  
  
“I think that’s why I think he’ll do better. Troublemakers are the ones that make change, you know,” Kai says, voice casual, even as his breath drifts over Yixing’s neck.  
  
Kai stops short of contact, eyes flicking up to look at him. “Is this okay?”  
  
Yixing can’t get himself to speak, nodding instead, fingers moving to wrap around Kai’s wrist.  
  
Kai dips back down to fit his mouth over his skin and _sucks_ , hard enough to bruise. The most Yixing can do is suppress the moan that threatens to escape from his throat.  
  
“That’s going to leave a mark—and Wufan’s going to hear us,” Yixing whispers, hands trailing up underneath the coarse fabric of Kai’s clothes.  
  
Kai drags his teeth up the side of his neck before pulling away to smirk at him. There’s something addictive there, in the way his eyes sparkle in the cave light.  
  
“He’s been out there for quite some time on his own, I think it’d only be fair that we give him something to see, after all this time, don’t you think?”  
  
Yixing cannot help but agree with this beautiful, strange magical boy.  
  
  
  
  
  
Something seems to settle in his bones after they...well.  
  
It makes him want to draw nearer to Kai, even when he’s next to him, on their way back to the river. Time passed them by too quickly, and they had to make their way back to the palace before they were too missed.  
  
Yixing kept the part about the guard being sent out after him again to himself, and Yifan doesn’t contradict him.

Kai guessed that it might happen again, but he thinks it's best that...for now, anyway, he doesn't know how important Yixing is to the palace.  
  
He’s not sure what it is, and despite everything, how they shouldn’t...couldn’t possibly… Yixing finds himself longing for more of the boy’s company.  
  
He hasn’t met someone so passionate about _anything_ before. Kai feels...like what he’s been looking for, and Yixing doesn’t know what he’s meant to do about it, but it tugs at him.  
  
It’s not until he’s mounted on his own horse (a palace steed, this time) does Yixing try to bring it up. “I do hope to see you again soon... At the palace, that is.”  
  
Kai swallows, teeth finding their way into the soft swell of his bottom lip. “At the palace,” he echoes.  
  
Yixing dips his head in a bow, pushing the thoughts of how his lips tasted of berries out of his mind as he rides away, followed by Yifan.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the escalation of gay could not be stopped. im sorry but it was out of my hands

**Author's Note:**

> please let me know in the comments if you are looking forward to the next part of the series, or if you decided to subscribe, or if there was anything that made you hurt or upset or happy!
> 
> comments, even if I might not be able to respond to them right now, are so so important to my motivation!
> 
> thank you for reading this far along. hope you are well ♡
> 
> if you want to come yell at me or say hi or show support or are just curious, links to cc and twt, etc are on my [carrd](https://pricklyteeth.carrd.co/)!


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